“We’ve been to the moon! Think about it! Think about how incredible that is!”

It is incredible…but you really have to stop and think about it.

Tonight (or tomorrow morning) many of us we’ll get to watch a full lunar eclipse. Not just our ancient ancestors, but even our recent ancestors would not have even dreamed of the things that are possible today when they looked up at the same moon and marveled at the same events which will unfold before us in the wee hours of the morning.

Science and technology is responsible for deploying spacecraft to Mars, Venus, Saturn, and beyond the edge of our solar system. The Hubble Space Telescope captures startling and magnificent images from billions of light years away that essentially allow us to peer back in time. Right now we scoff at the idea of traveling much farther than our own moon or Mars, but respected scientists from less than a hundred years ago would arguably be surprised to learn that the United States of America has erected a flag on the moon — and that was almost 40 years ago!

Last Friday I attended what I consider to be the best Humanities lecture that I have ever been to. There were three lecturers, the first of which just happened to be my professor. He briefly detailed the “Scientific Revolution”, providing just enough information for a science enthusiast such as myself to remember why he went back to school in the first place.